Christmas Greetings
by dancer4813
Summary: Dudley gets a Christmas card from a cousin of his... Is their relationship on the mend? *Note that there are unanswered questions here, but that is so the reader can decide his own answers, and let their imagination take over.


**AN: I would just like to apologize to anyone who read the uncompleted version of this story that was posted earlier. This is the full version now, not a beta. ;) Also, I've used more UK words in these 1,765 words than in anything else I've ever written, so if any of you Kingdomers find something to fix, don't hesitate to call me out on it! Thank you, as always, for reading!**

"Daddy! Daddy!"

Five-year old Alexis ran down the front hall and into her father's arms, almost tripping over her long grey dress. "Daddy! Guess what me and Mommy did today!"

"What did you do?" he asked, lifting her onto his hip, keeping her away from his coat in his other arm, which was damp with snow.

"You supposed to guess, Daddy!" she told him strictly, rolling her eyes and shaking her head, causing her two braided pigtails to whip around her face.

"Did you... take a nap?"

She frowned, obviously unsatisfied with his answer. "Yeah, but I take naps _e__b__ery_ day!"

"Cut your hair?"

"Nope!"

"Go to the library?"

"No!"

"Go swimming?" He tried to keep from smiling at her growing indignation.

"Daaaad! It's snowing outside!"

"Okay, fine. I give up."

"We had a tea party!" she exclaimed, wriggling out of her father's arms and dropping to the floor and running into the living room. He noticed the stuffed animals set up around a small table laden with teacups and saucers and a small plate of chocolate biscuits.

"Excellent!" He said, quickly pulling off and hanging up his coat, then hurrying into the room and snatching a biscuit off of the plate.

Alexis turned around just in time to see him take it, and sprinted over, plucking it out of his hand with extraordinary grace for her age. "That's for after dinner!"

A hearty laugh sounded from behind him and he turned to see his wife, Clara, wiping her hands off on a clean corner of her apron. "You'd better watch out for him, darling," she said as she leaned over to plant a kiss on her husband's cheek. "Your daddy likes his puddings too much, isn't that right dear?"

"Too true you are," He said, kissing her back. "Old habits die hard, as the saying goes."

He patted his daughter on the head, kissed Clara again and went to change out of his business suit and into more casual wear. They ate a wonderful supper of beef stew and potatoes, then they gathered in the living room to watch the news or, in Alexis's case, finish up her tea party before getting ready for bed.

When he'd finished getting Alexis into her pajamas, brushing her teeth and tucking her into bed, he went back to the living room where his wife sat, rifling through a large stack of envelopes containing Christmas cards from friends and family members.

"An owl came for you earlier," she said, picking up a thick parchment envelope she'd set aside from the rest of the pile. "I thought you might like to read it on your own first."

Dudley sighed softly, brushing a hand through his blonde hair and reaching out (albeit hesitantly) for the letter. He both anticipated and dreaded letters from Harry. Something in him still felt guilty for the way he had treated his cousin during their years growing up, but he still wanted to fix the remnants of their relationship into a cohesive whole. He felt truly sorry for all the troubles he had caused Harry over the years and, looking back, couldn't believe how much of a prick he had been. The bullying of those younger and weaker than him, the stinging barbs he'd thrown through words... They were things he wish he could have forgotten, as Harry seemed to have done. How could his cousin have forgiven him after years of torment? How could he have simply put the past behind him, as if blowing away an irksome fly?

"Aren't you going to open it?"

Dudley was started out of his reverie by the sound of his wife's concerned voice and he realized that he'd simply been staring at the letter, thinking. He felt an overwhelming pressure to open it, but at the same time was hesitant. He had definitely grown to love his cousin, but he still felt like he was unredeemable.

Carefully he peeled back the seal and pulled out – to his surprise – a Christmas card, completed with the red and green colors customary at that time of year. He read the short note on the back:

_To Dudley and family, from the Potters. Happy Christmas. _

It was signed by each of the family members.

Dudley flipped the card over and felt a memory spring to mind of his mother telling him stories from the family photo album. "Every picture tells a story," she had said, showing him glimpses of his distant relations. Granted, he'd only been nine at the time and hadn't been too thrilled with the idea of staring at pictures of people who were already deceased, so he hadn't paid much attention to such stories (which were, at that age, quite boring).

Of course, as he'd learned over the years, some pictures were more exciting than others. Action shots of leaping tigers or lions were more interesting than still life portraits in grainy sepia; photos of models and actresses were more intriguing than decades-old photos of family houses and pets, all of which were rather boring and dull.

And then he'd learned of wizarding photographs. The first time he'd seen them (only a year previously, just after New Years), it had been when Harry had invited him over for dinner. He'd stepped into the entryway and had immediately been assaulted with moving images (almost like short films) that were in no shape or form powered by electricity or televisions. His cousin had explained the process of making the pictures move, but it had all gone over Dudley's head. He knew little to nothing about the magical world, and even if he did the process sounded extraordinarily complicated.

Anyway, he remembered how each picture on the walls of the Potter house had a life of it's own. Pictures of his oldest child, James Sirius Potter, acted just like their subject, running all over the interior of the picture frame, of their second-oldest, Albus Severus, (the quieter of the two) grinning toothily at the camera or waving merrily. Photographs of their youngest (and their only daughter), Lily Luna, in which the toddler was consistently surrounded by a myriad of stuffed animals, laughing silently, her face alight with happiness. And then there was Teddy, Harry's godson, who had the most pictures of all (though Harry had told him it was solely due to the disproportionate amount of time he had lived), most of which consisted of a boy grinning mischievously or slyly, his hair changing to all colors and hues of the rainbow.

He had admired the wizarding photos. He wished that his young daughter's memories could be preserved in such a way. Like polaroid movies, with no chance of accidentally being deleted from a hard drive. Concrete photos that could be taken anywhere, with no need to go searching through his phone's memory to find what he wanted to show his friends at the office or his parents.

His parents, who would take one look at the picture and then shred it up. Or, at least his father would. He knew that his mother had warmed up to the idea of magic over the many years, though she was still not comfortable seeing it done in front of her. At least she wouldn't throw him out of the house like his father probably would...

Dudley shook those thoughts out of his head, taking a moment to actually look at the moving photograph in his hands.

There were the two boys - so similar looking, and yet so very different - both grinning and waving at the camera before making faces, resulting in their younger sister (who was seated between them) to push them to either side of the settee, laughing uproariously, her bright red pigtails flying around her head.

Ginny Potter, his cousin's wife, gazed down at the children from behind the couch, a knowing look on her face, before beaming at the camera. Next to her was Teddy, the thirteen year old slightly more mature than his god siblings, though his hair was red and green striped, and his face had a cocky grin hitched on to it. Dudley could tell that the boy wanted to look nice, but also wanted to join in with the other children. His hair changed to fully red (deep, like the poinsettias his mother had taken to keeping around her house) to an evergreen green color, before flipping back to the striped pattern.

And there was Harry. The man in the photo was hardly recognizable from the timid, scrawny, bespectacled runt with oversized clothes he'd been in his childhood years (Dudley felt a pang of guilt as he remembered the parts he'd played in his cousin's degradation). Neither was he the young man whose eyes had been haunted with ghosts, his face pallid and pale from countless nightmares, as he had been when they had parted ways to go into hiding. His muscles had grown (from playing some sport Dudley _still_ couldn't pronounce the name of, and from his job as a wizarding copper), he held himself with surety, and his face and eyes were alive with happiness as he looked at his family in the picture, taking just a moment to smile at the camera before gazing around at the controlled chaos once again.

Dudley smiled at the family, laughing as little Lily managed to shove one of her brothers hard enough to make him fall off the couch.

"It's a nice card?" Clara said, seemingly not looking up from the Christmas cards she was sorting, though the grin on her face told otherwise.

"Definitely" Dudley answered, smiling. How could it not be nice? It was a small piece of magic to carry around, to call his own despite the fact he wasn't and could never be a wizard. He flipped the card back over and traced his fingers over the signatures one by one. Suddenly, more writing appeared in an empty corner of the card and he started slightly, watching the words write themselves onto the paper.

_PS- Hope we can keep in touch, Big D. Send me a letter anytime, or drop by when you're in town. _

A muggle address followed, and Dudley smiled even brighter, making him feel like a grinning maniac.

He was glad that he and his cousin had a relationship in the works, on the road to mending.


End file.
